Writing

ArmadilloCon Wrap-up

As I mentioned in my previous post, this past weekend was ArmadilloCon here in Austin.  After three days of hanging out with published authors, not-yet-published authors, and fans, I can definitely say this:  These are my people and my people are weird.  Falling into both the software engineering and writing worlds myself, I am somewhat of an authority on weird, so take my word for it.  :)

Friday was the Writers’ Workshop.  Before the workshop started, I sat and talked to Rachel Caine for probably ten minutes before I introduced myself.  When she said her name was Rachel, it finally clicked on why she looked familiar–she was the guest of honor.  I then had that “I’m sitting next to someone famous” moment, but she was very cool when I turned all fangirl on her for a couple minutes.  I’ve read the first two books in her YA Morganville Vampire series and they were fun, fast reads.

The writers’ workshop was awesome.  There were four other aspiring authors in my group, and the group was led by Gordon and Ilona Andrews.  Gordon and Ilona are very nice, very cool people.  They gave me great feedback on the story I submitted.  Some of it was critical, but it’s what I needed to hear to be able to see the story through their eyes.  They also said some very, very nice things about my ability, so that was awesome.  I even got a mini shout-out on their blog.  The Jessie in the second paragraph… totally me.  ::dies::

Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday were mostly panels.  I took a bunch of notes but haven’t even started to process everything yet.  All I know is that my To Be Read list just got a whole lot longer.  The con was smallish, but it was a nice size because it felt intimate, like a group of friends getting together to talk books.  I guess I was basing my perspective on A-Kon, which is freaking huge, but I was expecting more people.

Sunday afternoon, thanks to the urging of the greatest husband on the planet, we got to hang out and have a drink with Gordon, Ilona, their friend Reece, and Stina Leicht (who also organized the workshop).  I totally wouldn’t have went over to talk to Gordon without Dustin’s urging, because I never want to be “that girl” that bothers people.  That fear coupled with my seriously introverted nature almost guarantees I avoid talking to strangers, almost-strangers, and especially almost-strangers-that-I-really-admire.   However, Dustin talked me into it, and I compromised by saying I’d just go say thank you and then leave.  A couple hours of chatting later, I realized it was getting late and we really should leave this time.  It was amazing!

Terrified + Excited = Terricited?

At the end of the month, I’m attending a writers’ workshop at ArmadilloCon with Whitney.  I submitted a short story that barely squeaked under the 5,000 word limit.  It was based on Day Thirteen of my Days of Genius.  Thirteen is my lucky number.  I think it helped me out.

When I emailed my submission, I very politely asked to be in a group with Whitney. Then, I ultra politely asked to be in a group led by one of my favorite authors, Ilona Andrews.

I was told that I might be able to be grouped with Whitney, but that all guest of honor groups were chosen by a jury process. I didn’t think anything of it and figured it hadn’t hurt to ask. At least Whitney and I might be grouped together.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email a couple days ago, letting me know I was in Ilona and Gordon’s group. I almost died. I don’t know if it’s because I asked politely or because my story was good (or bad?) enough, but I’m now a combination of excited and terrified.

I was already slightly worried about the critiques, as this will be my debut sharing my work with people who aren’t friends (or the few people who read the blog), but now an author whose writing I totally adore is going to be reading my story.  Gah!  ::breathes in a bag::

The good news is that I get to read the stories/first chapters of the four other people in my group.  I’m super excited to see where their imagination takes mine, because the scifi/fantasy world is so varied.

Random Snippet – Magic Investigation

I stood in the doorway, hesitant to enter.  There was blood smeared across the floor, leaving a wet, red trail into the next room.  I was called in to find the body.  The snarky half of my mind wondered if they had followed the bloody trail, but I  prevented the sentiment from leaving my mouth.

I crossed the threshold and felt the shimmer of a ward caress my skin.  Interesting.  Mr. Reynolds should not have needed a protection ward unless he thought he was being targeted.  It also meant that whoever killed him was a friend because he or she was invited inside.

The ward was weak but still intact.  If I became a danger to the one it was meant to protect, the ward would activate, with nasty results for the attacker.  At that point, the killer would have had two options:  break the ward or vacate the building as quickly as possible.

I thought perhaps the killer used a third option—kill Mr. Reynolds somewhere else and dump the body back into the house.  If he was already dead, then the ward wouldn’t activate.  But why?  Why move the body back into the house?

The question plagued me.  A murder to send a message was possible but all of our info on Mr. Reynolds said he was quiet and straight-laced.  He wasn’t involved with the mob and had no known enemies or even activities that would create enemies.

I followed the bloody streak on the floor.  It led from the living room into the kitchen before abruptly ending in the middle of the floor.  I scanned the room.  Magic remnants were thick in here.  So this is why I was called in.

The bloody smear ended in a perfectly straight line.  Something had erased the blood and left clean floor in its wake.  Two things came to mind.  The first was a teleportation circle, though that should have left the blood in an arc instead of a straight line.

The second was an illusion spell.  I moved closer, watching the ground carefully.  It shimmered ever so slightly as I moved.  I walked past the end of the blood.  Nothing.

An illusion that altered space was a difficult trick.  This meant a very powerful witch or wizard was involved and that narrowed the suspect list to only a handful of people, myself included.  I stepped back out of the area of illusion and called up my magic.

The illusion shivered as my magic rose, like a mirage or heat waves off of the hot August pavement.  I felt the edges of the foreign magic, a square about six feet across and two feet high.

The illusion was good, masterfully crafted and completely generic.  My eyebrow rose.  Magic was linked closely to the wielder.  Like a thumbprint, magic could be traced.  It took an enormous amount of time and effort to remove that thumbprint.  The list of suspects narrowed again, but without the magic link it wouldn’t stick to any of them.

I pushed gently, my magic curling around the edges of the illusion spell.  It held.  I pushed harder and the spell still didn’t budge.  Interesting.

“Mike,” I shouted, knowing the police chief was nearby, “you may want to pull back.  No telling what is going to happen when I crack this thing.”

Mike’s bald head popped into the kitchen.  “You find something?”

“Yeah, illusion spell.  Good one, too.  Going to take some doing to break it.”

“Okay, we’ll be outside.  Try not to blow yourself up…again.”  He smirked and ducked out of the kitchen.  I sighed—blow yourself up one time and you never live it down.

And The Winner Is…

…me!  Just over fifty-one thousand words in thirty days.  NaNoWriMo is complete with hours to spare.  Hours.  Woo hoo!

nano_09_winner

And now for the editing.  Oh, the editing…

Crossing 25k

So tonight I finally crossed the halfway mark in NaNoWriMo, right on track for the month.  However, it took a valiant effort today because I was behind.  I didn’t write at all last Thursday because of work, Friday I didn’t quite hit my daily goal, and yesterday I only wrote a few words because I was being lazy.

All of that added up to a goal today of 5510 to stay on track.  Yeah, over five thousand words.  Today.  Holy crap it adds up in a hurry.

I made it.  It took most of the day, but I did it.  I demolished my goal.*  How did I do it?  Blood, sweat, and tears.  Or maybe just diligence.  One of the two, for sure.

Like the Nike ad, the best advice is Just Do It.  I didn’t really want to write five thousand words today.  I’m in the middle of the book.  My characters are dumb.  The plot is going nowhere.  All I’m writing is dialog, which I hate with a fiery passion.

None of that matters.  What matters is that I’m doing it.  I’m writing and I’m forcing myself–for the most part–to stay on track.  I will win this year, if I have to drag my novel, kicking and screaming, across the line.  It may come to that.

*Okay,  I wrote 5614.  Not exactly a huge jump over 5510 but I’ll take what I can get.